A website after Neilalien's own heart: ComicPunx, a pictoral history of the punk (and "punk") subculture as it has been depicted in the medium of comic books

Fascinating interview with writer of Simpsons Bongo comics Ian Boothby [Comics Reporter]
Working on a beloved mainstream property; gags, pacing, and wordiness in comics; losing the great voices but people read the comics with the voices in their heads; selling poorly in the DM but well at the newsstand; and Spider-Man's satanic divorce.

The long history of the X-Men's image inducer, from dating enabler to too-powerful item to subverting the X-Men's meta-message by hiding their differences from humankind [Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun]

Your latest sign that Direct Market retailing is broken and trapped in amber: they don't have shelves to accomodate the traditional oversized European album format, so publishers have to resize books [Pipeline good rant]

Your latest "Death in comics sucks out all enjoyment/too many deaths/death is meaningless/temporary" link [4thletter]

From Doctor Strange #176's cover, we get November. The tombstone is oh-so-conveniently cracked where the year should be.

Neilalien is not omniscient, even about Doctor Strange and every appearance and shred of information about the character, and he's happy to be corrected- but from his own admittedly sick level of knowledge, and after consulting his secret cabal of Doctor Strange scholars, this is the *only* item in the current raw comic book record about Dr. Strange's exact birthdate.

From 02005's Marvel Knights Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe book, we get a birth year of 01930, no month. And a 01963 car accident year, btw- earlier OHOTMU's didn't wade into the minefield of exact dates.

Inconsistency: Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #84 goes back to the Nebraska farmhouse where Doc grew up, it says 01953 and shows Stephen Strange as a toddler. Plus that makes Doc only about 20 years old when the "Died 01968" tombstone on the above cover was chiseled.

Inconsistency: From 02005's OHOTMU Marvel Knights book: "Later, home [Nebraska] on vacation for his nineteenth birthday, Strange went swimming with Donna [his sister], who suffered a cramp and drowned." If you've ever been to Nebraska in November, you're probably guessing this was at an indoor pool. But Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #45 depicts the events as a summer day at a lake. Or a major Indian Summer?

Any Marvel writer can add at any time, but from official sources so far as of this writing as far as Neilalien knows, with the standard expected inconsistencies present in any 40-year chunk of comic book continuity created by multiple creators and measuring the time of characters that don't age on a meta level (it also happens to be that the Doctor Strange character doesn't age)- never mind reboot attempts- we have November 01930, and that's it.

But as usual, the internet will always have more information for you. One of Neilalien's pet peeves/crusades is about the accuracy of Doctor Strange information online, what is actually in the comic book record, and questioning what is really fan-made (or fan-delusion) but claimed to be official or spoken of as such.

Neilalien has no personal preference or argument for what day in November 01930 it will or should be- choosing Alan Moore's birthday is cute. If any readers have any source for the 18th date, please send it along. But as of right now, Neilalien says that if you meet Doctor Strange's exact birthdate on the road, kill it. It's probably fan-made bullshit.

"Illuminati will show up in Avengers #7," Bendis said, "they will be outed to the world for doing something even worse than they did last time." [SDCC Marvel Mondo Panel coverage at CBR]
So much for hoping the Heroic Age meant that your favorite heroic characters would be less douchebaggy. Also: Strange Tales II announced.

DC offered Alan Moore the rights to Watchmen back, if he would agree to prequels and sequels; but Moore don't want no Watchmen back [Robot 6]

Superman walks across the country to reconnect with the small potatoes and doing the little things; proceeds to endanger people's lives with bad medical advice, not rushing a heart-attack sufferer to the hospital [BeaucoupKevin] [Polite Dissent]

This weekend's movie scratch money went to Inception (excellent, btw: the mind of Memento enters the Dark City Matrix), so Neilalien still has had no chance to determine, on a scale of zero to five poisoned sandwiches, how much The Sorcerer's Apprentice eats Doctor Strange's Disney-magic-movie lunch. But is it not lose-lose?: Either it's so good the lunch is devoured, Incredibles to Fantastic Four style, or it's flat or so bad that magickal heroes and combats are soured at Disney for years.

Inception Spins Us Like A Top [Jordan Hoffman review at UGO.com]
Positive review; with: "no boobs? We're inside six guys's subconscious for a long period of time and no one, ever, gets naked?" The one main criticism-meme Neilalien would agree with is that Nolan didn't get weird or sexual enough with his blank dreamscape canvas of a very weird, sexual place, the human id.

This is the alternate Cancerverse Revenger evil version of Doctor Strange, getting his butt kicked by Mantis in this week's Thanos Imperative #2. It's comforting and consistent to know that even extradimensional versions of Doc get knocked unconscious more than any other comic book character in existence. Actually, this instance doesn't bother Neilalien so much. If you've ever played Dungeons & Dragons, you learn fast and know well to take out enemy spellcasters as quickly as possible, out of respect and fear for the real problems they can cause. Sometimes all it takes is one little line of dialogue, as in this panel, showing that a little thought, respect and strategy went into taking out Doctor Strange, that turns yet another lame appearance of the character into an at-least acceptable and sensical one. Still, would have liked to see Doc do something before going down instead of just starting to say gobbledygook- maybe an evil barbed-wire version of the Rings of Raggadorr? Note: Doc has dodged a Mantis strike before, only one of four to have ever done so by that time, in Defenders #9.

Harvey Pekar, underground/autobio comics giant, American Splendor creator, has died [Comics Reporter long obit]
"Comix are words and pictures... words and pictures... you can do anything with words and pictures..."

Okay, I have lots of reaction to this costume. First of all, I'm saddened to see my favorite Amazon back with ginormous balloon boobs after she's been drawn so beautifully and with respect during Gail Simone's run. Then of course, there's that the costume is just plain lame, not even a throwback to the 1990s, more like the 1980s. But most important: would DC let anyone change Superman's costume like that? Batman's? You don't mess with an icon.

Retail entertainment chain Hastings, 150 stores in 21 mostly-Southwest US states, to start selling periodical comics directly from Diamond, and back issues [Bleeding Cool] [ICv2]
Big news; a major expansion of the Direct Market; the first US national comic store chain? The seller of DVDs, video games, pop culture merchandise and music has experience with non-returnable graphic novels. Declining CD music sales made room for a new product.
Update/More: Toys R Us too?

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